Over the years I have had more than my share of computer problems. I've built several desktop computers from scratch and then used them until they were either so outdated that they would not run anything I needed at a decent enough speed to be useful, assorted parts started burning out or overheating and dying, and in one case the thing literally started falling apart.

I've had software problems of every description some I caused myself, others caused by unknown programmers that wouldn't know good programming style if you beat them half to death with a book about it and even a few that were caused by assorted hardware problems from bad memory chips to a dying CPU.

One of the several problems I am trying desperately to deal with cropped up earlier today while working on an article about the best diet pills for women for a Nutjob Hills local that I sometimes write for.

My cursor started behaving strangely. If I clicked on anything (link, button, menu button, bookmark, textarea for writing blog entries, changing tabs, literally anything) in my browser (firefox 3.6.12) I then have to click on something outside the browser before I am able to click on anything else.

Speaking as somebody that normally operates with a dozen or two tabs open and is constantly switching back and forth between them and often opening more and closing those not needed anymore... this is a royal pain in the ass beyond words.

I have never seen or heard of any problem quite like it before. At first I thought it was my mouse and so I unplugged the mouse and switched to the thrice damned touchpad that I hate using and had the same problem. Therefore it's not a mouse problem and probably not a touchpad problem.

Then I notice that my right shift key is, for lack of a better description, a lot too firm. Meaning it takes a lot more to press it enough for it to work than it is supposed to.

This tells me that there's something under it. I get out my finest set of small screwdrivers and a bright LED flashlight and take a look. I can't see anything. So after considerable debate and watching a video about it, I end up trying to remove the shift key without breaking it so that I could get things cleaned up and working right again. I'm also wondering if this problem with the shift key could be in any way responsible for the strange cursor behavior that started just this evening for no apparent reason.

I never did get the shift key removed. However in trying to do so I managed to remove the enter key and break it in the process.

This day just gets better and better!

Meanwhile, I've still got a royal shitload of writing to do and now, in addition to having to squeeze all that out of a tired overtaxed brain and get it done by midnight Sunday, NOW I have to figure out and fix computer problems on the one machine I didn't expect to HAVE such problems on. Hell, it's the first computer I've bought NEW since 1985, you KNOW I've been very careful to take care of it!!

I guess now it's back to the salt mines, trying to do enough writing with a damaged computer so that I can pay a bill that's already a month late and get to keep my internet another month so I can keep doing the writing to earn a bit of money that hopefully, someday, will eventually get my bills caught up and everything in my life working at the same time for once.